Kelly is an instructor of Creative Writing and Literature at Oakton Community College and College of Lake County in Illinois. Here, he explores ways that Father Olgum can be a useful character for readers who have trouble understanding House Made of Dawn.

The best approach one can take to an unfamiliar text is to burrow into it at any point of access possible, like a termite forcing an attack upon a tree. I will admit that there is much I find perplexing and uninviting about N. Scott Momaday's House Made of Dawn. At times it seems pointlessly convoluted, while at other parts it seems painfully simplistic. There were some points in my first reading where I wanted to put the book aside, to write it off as a case of weak writing masquerading as a work of substance.

Yet then I see another connection, then another, and...